


Will you Walk into my Parlour?

by Michaelisunderrated



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Web Avatar Martin Blackwood, Web!Martin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:15:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25629550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michaelisunderrated/pseuds/Michaelisunderrated
Summary: “You,” Jon swallowed the static in his voice. “You just compelled me.”“No.” Tim wasn’t having this conversation. Not now, not ever. “I’ll grab you some blankets. You can take the couch.”
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Tim Stoker
Comments: 53
Kudos: 279





	1. Will you Walk into my Parlour?

Tim fumbled in the dark, fingers curling over his phone. It screamed at him, and Tim wanted nothing more than to scream back. The caller id showed up as Jon. Of _course_ it was Jon. Who else would call at this ungodly hour? Tim groaned and turned his phone off, effectively silencing the inconvenience. Whatever it was could wait until the morning.

Wait.

Tim’s eyes shot open. _Jon_ was calling.

He fumbled quickly in the dark and called him back.

“Tim,” Jon said in lieu of a greeting. “Could you let me into your building? It’s a bit cold out here.”

Tim flicked on the light. It was too bloody early for this.

“What the _hell_ Jon. I’m not about to crawl out of bed in the middle of the night just because- wait, how do you know where I live?”

“I just Knew, I-” Jon sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. It’s not exactly like I can control it.”

“Could you try?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Tim shrugged off his blankets and instantly regretted it. The air was cold and he shivered with what felt like static in his teeth. He called it like it was. “Bullshit.”

“If I could control it I’d be tempted to use it. No, I _would_ use it. I think it speeds up the process of Becoming… whatever it is I’m becoming.”

“A monster?”

Tim couldn’t hear it through the phone, but he knew Jon had flinched. It wasn’t as satisfying as he’d thought.

“Right. That. I’ve seen it happen before with other avatars, with…” There was a long pause after that and the sound of shuffling footsteps. Pacing, Tim realized. Jon was pacing. “So can I crash on your couch?”

“Right,” Tim yawned. “Sure. Be down in a sec.”

He hung up the phone, thoughts still groggy as he shuffled through his flat. Tim shrugged on an old tee shirt over his boxers, grabbed his keys, and stepped out into the hall. He didn’t bother with shoes; his building was carpeted. He was halfway to the elevator when the last dredges of drowsiness were chased away by the bright fluorescents.

Tim’s steps faltered.

 _Jon was alive_.

More than that, Jon was at his doorstep asking to be let in. Which meant he was lucid enough to make his own decisions. Which meant he hadn’t gone to Martin after he talked with Jude Perry. Which meant there was _still time_.

Tim hadn’t been able to save Danny, or Sasha, or the _real_ Martin, but he could still save Jon.

Tim moved quicker after that. He was at the front door of his building in record time, holding the door open for Jon and shoving him inside when he didn’t move fast enough.

“Thank you,” Jon smiled. It seemed wrong, but not in a supernatural way. Rather, it seemed Jon didn’t want to draw attention to his distress. It wasn’t any good as Jon was an awful liar, but Tim smiled back anyway.

They made it into Tim’s flat and he walked Jon into the kitchen.

“Tea?” Tim asked to fill the silence. Inwardly, he cursed. That was such a Martin thing to do. “I have coffee too. Or hot chocolate. Or-”

Tim froze. There was something wrong with Jon and it wasn’t the faux smile which turned more into a grimace every second. It was his _skin_ which was wrong, covered head to toe in a gauze which wasn’t gauze at all. Web traveled across Jon's neck, disappearing down his sweater. It was especially dense against his worm scars, silver threads connecting each one like constellations over his dark complexion.

“The Spider sent you, I take it.”

Jon blinked up at him, tugging at the collar of his sweater. It was an olive green, hand knitted thing which left Jon’s collar bones exposed beneath its baggy weight. There was no question who the sweater belonged to.

“Tim,” Jon sighed, pinching his nose the way he used to when Martin used anything less than Times New Roman 12pt. font. “I know you don’t like Martin but-”

Tim set a mug down on the counter more forcefully than was necessary. He didn’t miss the way Jon’s shoulders tensed at the noise. “Don’t call it that.”

“Tim, please. We’ve been over this.”

“That _thing_ isn’t Martin any more than that monster which killed Sasha was her. You remember Sasha, right? Neither do I. Because it _ate_ her.”

Maybe that was cruel. Tim decided he didn’t care.

“It’s a monster, Jon. It’s not Martin.”

“Well then what…” Jon swallowed the question down his web covered throat, the intricate patterns shifting with him. 

It reminded Tim of the table, the one which trapped that thing which stole Sasha’s skin. Tim knew the question Jon had been meaning to ask just as surely as he knew he couldn’t answer it. _What am I then?_

“It doesn’t work like that, Tim,” Jon settled on instead.

Tim laughed. It was bitter and scratched at his throat crawling out. It tasted like battery acid. “Martin pines after you for years. You never show any interest, in fact you’re _awful_ to him. Then Martin turns into a spider monster and now you two are dating? I don’t buy it.”

Jon sighed. He’d been doing a lot of that recently.

“He’s an avatar of the web, Jon. The entity of control, manipulation. Have you ever stopped to think, _really_ think, about what that means for you?”

_“Of course I have.”_

The words came out biting but Tim could practically taste his fear. For a moment he wondered whether the Beholding’s gaze had burrowed deeper into Tim than he realized before deciding that no, Jon was simply an awful liar. For as still as he kept his voice the rest of him was trembling. His shoulders curled inward, gaze pinned to the floor. He was pulling at his collar again, though not at the jumper. His nails dug beneath the crisscrossing thread but they would not give. Instead the skin at the base of Jon’s fingers was rubbed raw and red.

“Why do you think I’m here, Tim?” There was no static in his voice, just quiet resolution.

“The Spider sent you.”

“ _Martin_ doesn’t know I’m here.”

Tim wanted to believe him. More than anything, he wanted to believe that Jon had come here of his own volition, not because that Spider which used to be Martin was pulling his threads. But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

“You’re covered in _webs_. That’s not exactly reassuring.”

“Yeah well, I don’t like it either.” Jon paused. “Are you still offering tea? You’ve been standing next to that empty mug for a while now.”

As far as diversion tactics went, Jon was as obvious as they came. This conversation was going nowhere though, and he looked like he could use it. “Sure you don’t want something stronger?”

Jon shook his head so Tim busied himself with making tea. All he had were instant tea bags, which Tim knew the Spider would be appalled by. That was why he’d bought them, to imagine those beetle eyes blown wide in horror. That, and they were on sale. He handed the cup to Jon whose fingers curled around the warmth. He didn’t drink it.

“Why are you here then?” Tim recycled Jon’s earlier question.

“Didn’t know where else to go.” Jon still made no move to drink and it became clear to Tim that Jon could care less about the tea. He just wanted heat to clutch at the palms of his hands. “The institute would be the first place Martin looked, and I couldn’t very well stay at our flat.”

“Wait, you two are sharing a-”

_“Tim.”_

Tim backed off.

“I know you think Martin made me join this relationship, but he didn’t. You need to accept that.”

He was still defending him, even now. Just how far beneath the skin had the Spider spun his webs? “If you really believe that, you wouldn’t be here.”

Jon sighed. Tim was getting tired of the sound.

“Do you really believe Martin’s powers had nothing to do with it? That you went from being hating Martin to being in love with him and his new little mind control powers are completely irrelevant?

There was a tape recorder on the counter which hadn’t been there before. It clicked on with a whir. Jon stared at it dumbly before turning to Tim, eyes wide.

“Do you honestly believe he’s not manipulating you? Do you-”

The air was filled with static and battery acid. It wasn’t coming from Jon.

_“Do you love him or do you just think you do?”_

How? Jon wanted to ask, but when he opened his mouth a statement spooled from his lips.

_Martin died in his flat. He told me as much. There is something about dying which fosters an Avatar’s becoming. Rebirth, that’s what Martin called it. The worms killed him and the spiders saved him and then he belonged to The Web. I can’t tell you more than that, I wasn’t there._

_He’s still Martin though. And if he isn’t, then he’s the Martin I fell in love with, and quite frankly I don’t care how much of this Martin is the old Martin. I don’t think the old Martin would have understood, not really. This Martin is- terrifying. I love him._

_When Martin first told me what he was, it was all too familiar. My horror was woven of silk and cobweb and Martin had the audacity to be more scared than I was. I thought he was going to eat me to be honest. I believe I asked if he was Mr. Spider. He told me no, Jon and who is Mr. Spider? But his confusion did little to ease my fears. I hadn’t always been scared of spiders. There was a time in my youth, an admittedly short time, where I bore no ill will towards the creatures. Then I had an encounter with a Lietner, and well. Suffice it to say I bear little sympathy towards the Mother of Puppets and her children._

_I ran. To Martin’s credit, he did not follow._

_The next morning however, I found a cup of tea next to a statement I’d been working on. I didn’t drink it. Accepting tea from monsters was the sort of unnecessary risk which makes up the statements in my Archives. I dumped it down the drain. I searched my office after that, certain I would find a cluster of cobwebs tucked away, or worse: their inhabitants. I found nothing. Somehow that was more terrifying than the feeling of web pulling apart beneath my fingers._

_When I went in the next morning there was another cup of tea on my desk, still warm. Again I searched my office, and again there was nothing to be found. This carried on for almost two weeks until my curiosity overcame my paranoia. As I raised the cup to my lips I told myself this was the best thing to do. Monsters like Martin liked to toy with their victims and I refused to be his play thing. If I was to join the ranks of the statement givers, it would be on my own terms. In actuality, I know choice had nothing to do with it. I was consumed by the need to_ Know _, to see and experience and catalogue my own terror._

_Nothing happened._

_The tea tasted like lemon and cinnamon. It was bitter and scalded my tongue, but utterly mundane._

_The next morning there was a paper bag on the desk, a napkin stapled to it. I pulled it towards me to see Martin’s spidery handwriting. Sorry, it read, I didn’t know which kind you liked. Inside were a half dozen different pastries. My lips curled upwards on their own. It was so Martin, overeager, fussy, and all too apologetic. I was struck with the strangest urge to write back to him. Instead I picked up a chocolate muffin and took a sip of the tea. It was sweeter this time._

_It’s curious how easily humans adapt to their situations. The fear never truly left, but it eased some with the certainty Martin wasn’t actively trying to kill me. I drank Martin’s tea, I ate his pastries, and I read statements. I stopped searching the corners for cobwebs. There were larger things to worry about, namely Gertrude’s killer. A cleaning crew had found her body in the tunnels three weeks after Prentiss’s attack. She’d been shot. I had my suspicions: Tim, Sasha, Elias. It couldn’t have been Martin. Her death was too mundane for that_

_I tried going into the tunnels. I came in early, stole a key from Elias’s office, and snuck down into the archives. The trapdoor was sealed shut, three inches of cobwebs holding it, strong as steel. There was a note attached, scrawled onto a napkin._ **_“It’s not safe Jon.”_ **

_So I tried tailing my suspects instead. I followed Sasha after work, tracked her boyfriend's car to a wax museum of all places. I tried to follow her inside, but the cab I was in simply kept driving despite my instructions. I tugged at the door handle frantically but a spider scuttled over my fingers so I resigned myself to my seat._

_I might have struggled more but I recognized these roads. This was the route to my flat. Sure enough, the cab slowed outside my building and the cabbie turned to look at me. Her eyes were glazed, cobweb patterning where his irises should be._

**_“Really, Jon,”_ ** _the cabbie gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles white, but it wasn’t the cabbie speaking to me with fond exasperation in his voice._ **_“Stalking your coworkers? Are you mad?”_ **

_I tugged at the handle. There weren’t any spiders this time._

_I wanted to stay. I wanted to ask Martin why he kept intervening. I wanted to tell him I liked his tea. I’d noticed how it changed every day, just slightly, and I knew Martin was looking for the perfect blend. I wanted to say he was almost there. I wanted to pry his statement from the cabbie’s throat and file it neatly away._

_I opened the door and walked into my building. The cabbie’s eyes followed after._

_I’ll admit Martin had the right idea of it, stopping me from going too far. I.. tend towards obsession. I doubt that would have gone over well. So, I resigned myself to more passive research. I stalked social media, found names, addresses. Reverse image searching became my best friend. It didn’t help any, but at least I felt I was doing something._

_Basira fed me statements. She suspected me, that much was obvious. As for Sasha and you, Tim, I don’t actually know what you did all day. I locked myself in my office, poured over statements, and drank Martin’s tea._

_I didn’t notice how isolated I’d become until I started writing back to Martin. They were little notes, a ‘thank you for the tea’ every now and then, but soon notes turned into letters. He told me about his mother, and I told him about my grandmother. He went on about knits and purls and patterns I didn’t understand. I talked far too much about emulsifiers. I even told him about The Mechanisms. His laughter in the next letter was almost audible coming off the page._

_Reading that note, with his gentle laughter echoing unnatural in my head, I came to a horrible conclusion. I_ liked _him. I liked his tea and his letters and the sweater I found draped over my chair one morning. It was warm. I’m not great at relationships, which is why instead of asking him to coffee- I asked him to come back to work. Dreadful, I know. Martin didn’t seem to mind though, if the way he beamed at me the next morning was any indication. He handed me my tea in person this time and my fingers brushed over his. It was nice._

_You, Tim, did not react the way I hoped you might. I suppose that was understandable. Martin had been declared missing since Prentiss, only to waltz back into the archives unscathed with eyes that weren’t quite right. You were angry Tim, and Martin was the perfect outlet. He was a monster, and you could hate him without guilt. I hadn’t realized how hard Prentiss’s attack hit you. We got along well enough,which likely wouldn’t have happened if Martin hadn’t curbed my paranoid behavior, but I wasn’t there for you the way you wanted me to be. I thought you had Sasha, but that wasn’t Sasha, was it?_

_I remember when Martin killed that thing which took Sasha. The way he pulled at a thousand invisible threads, the absolute confidence in his demeanor, the control, it was intoxicating. I kissed him then. His breath caught like cotton in the back of my throat. I worried, of course I worried, that this wasn’t my choice at all. Maybe Martin was pulling on my strings, or perhaps he’d planted a thought or two in my head and simply waited. But the look of shock on his face was so lovely it couldn’t possibly have been faked._

_It was wonderful. It was intense. It was-_

The tape recorder clicked off. Jon was shaking.

“You,” Jon swallowed the static in his voice. “You just compelled me.”

“No.” Tim wasn’t having this conversation. Not now, not ever. “I’ll grab you some blankets. You can take the couch.”

“What?”

“ _Goodnight_ , Jon.”


	2. Said the Spider to the Fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon’s breathing came gentle and even and his glasses fogged up with each rise and fall of his chest. Tim reached out, slowly, gently, and pulled the glasses away. He folded them up and placed them on the coffee table.

It was well into the afternoon when Tim woke up. It was a workday, and his shift started hours ago, but he was well past the point of caring. Slowly, he picked his way out of bed.

Coffee, he needed coffee and… breakfast. Tim didn’t usually eat breakfast, but he couldn’t deny the hunger that gnawed at his bones. It threw him for a bit of a loop. Unlike Jon, Tim actually took care of himself. He shouldn’t be _this_ hungry.

He pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt which hurt to look at. It was the one he’d been wearing when Michael trapped him in their infinite hallways. Tim rather liked it. He toed on his shoes and headed towards the door.

Jon was still sleeping.

That was… Tim had never seen Jon sleep before. He wasn’t even sure if he still needed to. He looked so relaxed like this. Human even.

Swaddled in blankets and an oversized sweater on a couch that was too small even for him, Jon looked more peaceful than Tim had ever seen him. Even before the shitshow that was the archives, Jon wasn’t the type to let his guard down.

Jon’s breathing came gentle and even and his glasses fogged up with each rise and fall of his chest. Tim reached out, slowly, gently, and pulled the glasses away. He folded them up and placed them on the coffee table.

“Right,” he whispered to no one. “I’ll be right back.”  
  


Melanie was waiting for him on the top of the steps.

“ _What the hell_ , Tim,” she growled, jabbing a finger at his chest. “It’s almost three.”

Tim arched an eyebrow. “And?”

“And you’re just showing up now?”

“Haven’t been fired yet.”

“That’s not- you can’t just fuck off to gods know where and leave all the work to me and Martin. Martin doesn’t even work here, I checked. That’s not fair to him. Also, how haven’t you been fired yet? I’ve filed at least three complaints.”

Tim brushed past her. “Good for you.”

“Oh _fuck off_ ,” Melanie called after him, but she didn’t care enough to follow.

“I’ve been trying!” came his cheeky response.

The spider was the one keeping them trapped here, Tim was sure of it. After all, the rest of the institute could quit. It was only the archival staff who were bound to their jobs through supernatural force. Jon and Tim, the people the Spider cared most about in its own twisted way, were the only ones trapped. It had tried to point the finger at Elias of all people, useless beaurocrat that he was, but Tim was no fool. He didn’t believe in coincidence.

The spider had started bringing tea for Melanie a few weeks ago. Tim hoped, for her sake, that she was still able to quit. He’d told her when she’d first taken the job to quit while she still could. That hadn’t gone over well.

The hunger hit him in a wave as he pulled open the door to the archives. It was an odd sort of thing, but he cast it aside. He’d record a statement then he’d see about takeout.

“Tim!” The spider waved at him cheerfully, already sat at its desk.

Tim kept walking. Maybe if he ignored it it would go away.

“Tim, hey.”

No such luck. Tim turned around and headed for the door. It wasn’t like he could be fired for skipping work.

“ _Tim_.” And then the Spider was in the doorway. It smiled, looking for all the world like its placement was purely coincidental. “Would you like some tea?”

“No thank you.” He stepped to the side to look for an opening but Martin was a big man and an even bigger monster.

“I made you a cup.”

“I was just heading out.”

Martin reached behind him. The door clicked shut. Tim flinched at the sound

 _The Spider,_ Tim corrected, _The Spider reached behind._

It stared at him, beetle eyes and cobweb smile. “I made you a cup. I wanted to say thank you, for looking after Jon.”

Tim took a step back. He wanted to scream at the thing but the words caught in his throat. **_(Be_ _polite_ ** _**Tim. I know you don’t like me but that really wasn’t very nice at all)** . _His eyes flicked to the side, searching. There was no one there but him and the monster. There was a chair, three steps to the right which he might be able to use if it came to that. If the Spider let him get that far.

Tim swallowed. “You tracked him?”

“I tracked his phone.”

“That’s-” absolutely psychotic. “Isn’t that a breach of his privacy?”

“He stormed out of our flat two hours after meeting with a supernatural pyromaniac who gave him a third degree burn. After I _told_ him not to. After he lied to me, _to my face_ , that he was going to see Georgie. Trust is a two way thing, Tim.”

Jon had been telling the truth then. That, or it was lying. It seemed a bit much to fake the anger seeping underneath a layer of aggressive positivity, but Tim wouldn’t put it past the Spider.

It offered the cup to him again. Tim decided he’d take it, if that was what it took to get the thing to move out of the way.

The Spider didn’t move.

It was probably waiting for him to drink it. Tim had just enough self preservation to know that was a horrible idea.

Minutes passed. The Spider didn’t so much as blink.

Which was worse, disrupting the neat domestic narrative the spider had spun or following it to script? It wasn’t a choice at all.

 _Move,_ Tim wanted to demand, _and go fuck off forever while you’re at it._ What came out instead was “Could you slide over a bit? You’re blocking the door.”

The Spider fixed its gaze on the untouched mug in Tim’s hands. “In a bit.”

“I was really hoping to leave _now_.”

“No.” The spider said it softly, like a gentle caress, like petting a sickly dog right before you put it out of its misery. “No, that won’t do at all.”

It felt like standing in Covent Garden Theater, too terrified to move. It felt like passing out in the archives while worms burrowed into his skin. It felt like being called into the coroner’s office to identify Sasha’s body, which wasn’t Sasha’s body at all.

Tim took a step back. Before he could take another, a hand curled over his wrist.

“You should record a statement first.”

“I don’t like recording statements.” That was a lie.

Tim tugged at the hand on his wrist but the Spider was strong. Too strong. “Why not? You’ve done it before.”

He had. When Lietner was murdered and Jon was framed, Tim was alone in the archives with the Spider. Tim _knew_ the Spider had done it. He didn’t Know the way Jon did, but Tim had a brain thank you very much. He just couldn’t figure out why.

The Spider had offered to help but Tim wasn’t having it so it was up to him to record until Melanie arrived to lighten the load. Even then he kept recording more than his share. He’d found three tapes in Jon’s voice cobwebbed up on his desk. They sat there for 13 days, untouched. He’d almost thrown them away, but Tim’s curiosity got that better of him and he’d played them back. It was a good thing he had. They were all about the circus, about the _things_ which stole his brother’s skin and Sasha’s name, and how could Tim stop recording statements after that? If these were here then there must be more and Tim had to _know_.

“I could give you mine if you like.”

Tim stared at it. It took him awhile to find his voice. “... no thank you.”

“It’s really no bother.”

“I recorded one yesterday,” Tim said because that was true, wasn’t it?

“I know.” The Spider’s eyes gleamed. There were six of them now. “In the future I’d prefer if you didn’t feed off my boyfriend, but I suppose I can’t fault you for this one. I’m just glad it worked.”

 _What worked?_ Tim stared at it. His breath was in his ears and his heart was in his feet. He needed to leave. Now.

“You must be hungry Tim. Afterall, you only had half a statement.”

Tim heard static. He tasted battery acid and magnets and that thin paper filament they put in tapes. He bit his tongue till it bled because this wasn’t happening. _This wasn’t happening this wasn’t happening this wasn’t happening thiswasn’thappening_

He was so hungry. Dear gods, he was starving.

The Spider continued its rambling, “Jon stopped it, didn’t he? He managed to stop a statement right in the middle. He’s quite powerful, my Jon. Adorable really.”

Had that tape recorder always been there?

“But you must be starving. Poor thing. Look at me, prattling on about my love life while you still haven’t eaten. That’s very impolite of me, and while you’ve been so good to my Jon too and- Right. Getting sidetracked. Statement of-”

“Stop it.”

“Martin Blackwood regarding the Spider and the Fly. Statement given-”

“I said _stop_ ! Stop talking. _Stop stop stopstopstopstopstop_ -”

“As a gift to a dear friend, April 25th 2017.”

The spider smiled at him.

“Statement begins.”  
  


_I’ve always liked spiders._

_When I was a child, I kept a spider in the back of my closet. Made me feel a bit rebellious, and I think I needed that. She didn’t like pets, my mum._

_It wasn’t a lie exactly. I just never told her and she never asked. I probably could have kept a dog if I’d really wanted, so long as I kept it like I kept myself, quiet and out of sight. I liked the spider though, and I’d already named him George._

_George was a good spider. I’d feed him the dead stink bugs I found when I cleaned around the house and he’d crawl over the palm of my hand before scuttling back into the dark and cobwebs. I used to talk with him for hours. He probably didn’t actually understand anything I said, but I like to think that when he lifted one leg in the air, just a bit, it was his way of nodding. George was a good listener._

_Mum stepped on him._

_It was an accident of course. Well, she meant to do it, but she couldn’t have known. That’s my mum for you. She just did things like that sometimes, throwing out things without telling me, or ordering in when I’d already cooked, or telling me to finish up the kitchen right when I grabbed the sponge. She wasn’t trying to be hurtful, she just didn’t know what she was doing and I never told her how I felt about it. Well, I did try to tell her. Once. My mum wasn’t a very good listener._

_Spiders have always liked me too. Looking back, I wonder how many of them were normal, if any of them were. I probably should have been more concerned when my fifth grade bully ended up in the hospital for spider bites. Or when this girl at my first job working the checkout line outed me to our boss and half our stock went missing on her watch. She ended up being fired for that. I called it karma at the time, but I can’t help but recall a lot more cobwebs at work after._

_It was a good thing I’d gotten that job. I had to quit school just a few months after to take care of my mum._

_It was hard, and my mum made it harder, but we got by. I picked up a second job at a little cafe. When that place closed down, I applied to be a bartender. I had to lie about my age, but that was okay. Between that place and the grocery we got by._

_I told myself this was fine. I’d take care of mum until she got better, then I’d go back to school and get on with my life. Obviously, that never happened._

_After a while, the hospital bills started to wrack up. So I... lied. Faked my cv. Got a job at the Magnus Institute, in the library. I was transferred to the archives some years after. The job came with a decent pay raise, which was good. The care home mum had insisted on was expensive._

_That’s where I met him. Jon. He was... he was an asshole._

_I was smitten._

_I wasn’t in love or anything. I just liked him. And then I beat myself up about liking him because not only was he my boss, he hated me. He always thanked me when I made him tea though. My mum never thanked me. Plus he had this way of saying my name. Not Martin, never Martin. He said_ Mahtin _, and sometimes when I didn’t format something right or I attached the wrong follow up he’d lengthen it a bit._ Maaaahtin _. Just like that._

 _He was always going off about my follow up research. I could never manage to scrape up as much evidence as you and Sasha, Tim. Sure I hadn’t gone to some fancy university like the rest of the institute, but I did my job just fine thank you very much. Jon thought I was unqualified. I_ was _unqualified. I couldn’t very well tell him that though. So I thought I’d try and prove myself instead._

_Which was how I ended up in the basement of Carlos Vittery’s apartment. And then trapped in my apartment under siege by worms. And then dead._

_Right. I left that part out of my original statement, didn’t I?_

_(Oh do settle down, Tim. I know you’re hungry but I’m getting to that part.)_

_It was on the fifth day that it happened. A silly thing, really. I thought I might, I dunno, outrun Jane and her worms. To be fair, I hadn’t slept in all that time so I wasn’t in the best state of mind. I didn’t even make it out the door. As soon as I opened it the worms were there, and then they were on me and in me, and I was screaming. I thought at the very least someone might have heard that, but no one ever came. I must have laid there for hours._

_The worms were... gods I could feel each and every one of them_ burrowing _into my flesh. I’d never been scared of worms before Prentiss. I wasn’t exactly fond of them either, but I’d always made an effort to lift them up off the sidewalk and into the grass after it rained._

_I think somehow Jane knew that about me. She was singing through all of it, and the worms were singing, and they wanted me to sing too. It was haunting. It was horrifying._

_It was beautiful._

_The worms just wanted a home. They wanted me to be their home, and that was all I’d ever wanted, really. I wanted to love and be loved back, to give everything I had and have someone say thank you for once instead of shouting at me to go away._

_I wanted to sing, I really did. I almost did._

_And then George showed up._

_He sat there, perched on my chest. Around him the worms wailed, silvery slimy things gone dead in an instant leaving a perfect worm free ring around him. George stared at me for a long time. Then he lifted one leg in the air, just a bit._

_I nodded back._

_And then I died._

_When I woke up I wasn’t human anymore, though I didn’t realize it at first. I honestly thought I was going a bit mad. I remembered vividly Carlos Vittery’s statement, and Jane Prentiss, and being slowly eaten alive by a thousand silvery worms, but when I blinked my eyes open there was no sign of Jane or her worms, not even carcasses left behind. There was no sign that anything happened at all._

_I’d almost convinced myself it was all some terrible dream when George scuttled across my shoulder. He was bigger now, almost the size of my palm and he looked almost human somehow. I don’t know how to describe it, except to say that spiders aren’t supposed to smile. They aren’t supposed to have teeth at all, and they certainly aren’t supposed to be that sharp._

_I suppose it could have been a different spider, but the thought wouldn’t occur to me until half a year later. This was George, my George, the same George who spun webs in the back of my closets and dulled my mother's words with cotton. It was the only thing that made any sense._

_George smiled at me and I smiled back. Our smiles were the same._

_He raised one leg up and then simply because I could I pressed my palm against it. And then another. And another._

_I froze. That was too many hands._

_There were six of them, I later realized, once I stopped screaming._

_The fear hit me all at once, although it had never left at all. It was simply dulled and then the Mother tugged a single thread and a carefully crafted wall of cotton fell away._

_The Mother. She’s not a she, not really, but that’s what we call her._

**_Would you like it back?_ ** _She asked, and she was me and Anabelle Cane and the spiders and everyone and everything the Web had ever touched all at once._

_I whimpered. I didn’t want this, I hadn’t asked for this, but I’d chosen this. There was nothing I could do. I belonged to the Web, and the Mother and there was nothing I could do. It was out of my control. I didn’t like that._

_I looked to George for help. He did nothing._

_Did I want it back?_ **_Yes please._ **

_The Mother smiled, if such a thing can be said to smile at all_

**_Do it yourself then._ **

_I didn’t know what to do, and then all at once I did. I could see the threads, all of them, the way they shimmered silver and impossible. Beautiful. More brilliant than Jane’s song could ever hope to be. The Mother hadn’t taken control, I realized, she’d given it to me._

_I reached out and began to weave._

_It took me nine days to do it. I spun and I wove and I knit and I sewed and I shaped a brilliant tapestry, so thin it was imperceptible. I pulled it around my shoulders and then I had two arms instead of my six and my teeth looked halfway normal. It was sloppy work. I’m much better at it now._

_Elias was there when I rushed into the institute 13 days after I visited Carlos Vittery’s flat. He was waiting at the top of the steps. The Beholding saw right through me._

_Jon was fooled though. The tape recorder whined when I gave my statement, and my story felt false on my tongue because it was, but Jon couldn’t See when he refused to look._

_That was okay. He would soon._

_I was going to make sure of it._


	3. ‘Tis the Prettiest Little Parlour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin didn’t have a plan. He didn’t. He wasn’t like Anabelle.
> 
> He could feel the Mother laughing through the tremors of the web at his fingertips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW ⚠️ panic attack, scratching, and accidental self harm ⚠️ TW
> 
> Also if anything in this chapter or the previous ones is triggering, please tell me so I can add a content warning

“Statement ends.”

Tim was frozen. He’d felt fear before while recording statements, but never like this. Written statements were stale by comparison.

Someone was talking. Martin. Martin was talking. But Martin was dead, so that didn’t make any _sense_. Something was talking, and it looked like Martin.

The words slid off of him like water. He could still taste it, Martin’s fear on his tongue, that single instant of terror and confusion right before he’d blinked out of existence. He could feel the worms. _He could feel the worms._

Something slipped from Tim’s hands and shattered on the archive floor. His shoes were wet and sticky now.

Think. Tim needed to think. He couldn’t think. There was pressure in his ear drums and in his chest and all around him and it _hurt_. His eyes hurt. They hurt from Watching, but his stomach was heavy and warm and full in a way that scared him. Tim wasn’t sure why that scared him. Maybe if he could just stop the static he would know. Or Know. Was there a difference?

Tim latched on to the last thing his mind had screamed before that awful static rose up, up into his lungs.

Leave. He needed to leave. Now.

Tim ran, and nothing stopped him. Had something been stopping him before?

He didn’t know where he was going but he Knew. His legs carried him to the tube, and then to his building, and then into an elevator and outside a door. Fingers shaking, he unlocked it. He pulled the door shut beside him and collapsed onto the floor.

…

“Tim?”

If Tim had looked up he would have seen Jon hovering above him, uncertainty dancing across Jon’s features. His hair was mussed, sticking up in odd places. He tugged at the fabric of his wrinkled trousers, more for something to do than anything else.

“Are you alright?” Jon asked, halfway between a yawn and concern.

Tim didn’t hear him. All he heard was the wriggling of worms and a single skittering spider. The fear he had tasted still sat on his tongue. It lingered. How did Jon _do_ this? He’d been there. He’d seen and heard and felt every inch of Martin’s fear before he died, and then he’d felt the Spider’s fear. They tasted the same. But that was _wrong_ . Martin and the Spider weren’t the same. They couldn’t be. That didn’t make _sense_.

But gods. The worms. It was like reliving Prentiss.

He patted down his arms, his legs, the back of his neck. Logically, he knew the worms couldn’t be there, but Tim’s logic wasn’t working at the moment. All he knew is that he had felt the worms burrowing into Martin’s skin as though they were burrowing into his own.

Tim pulled at his skin. He had to check. He had to make sure there weren’t any inside him already. Did he own a corkscrew? No he didn’t. A kitchen knife might work, but he couldn’t force his legs to stand. His fingernails would have to do. They were long enough.

Tim scratched and kept scratching, angry red lines down his arms and face until something soft landed on his shoulders.

Someone was speaking to him, but he didn’t register the words. The soft thing was nice, though, and so was the pressure on his shoulder. It was a nice sort of pressure, but it was gone too quickly. The soft thing stayed and Tim buried his face into it.

The person speaking to him wasn’t Prentiss and it wasn’t the Spider, Tim registered somewhere in the back of his brain, the part that wasn’t consumed with panic. It was a nice voice.

“...don’t like being touched when I’m… yeah. I don’t know if you do, but. Blankets usually help.”

Tim pulled the blanket away from his face.

“I also don’t like noises when I’m panicking. The kind where the sound is everywhere, and no matter where you go you can’t get rid of it so you lock yourself in a room for hours and hours, but someone didn’t fix the vent so the sound is still there and- wait. You might be the same. I’ll stop talking now.”

Jon. The voice was Jon.

Tim took a heavy breath. He was panicking. Right. Having a panic attack, or an anxiety attack, Tim didn’t exactly know the difference between the two. Whatever it was that made your chest hurt and your legs _itch_.

A weight settled next to him, not touching but still close.

Tim closed his eyes. He needed to breathe. Wasn’t that what they told people, to take deep breaths?

_In. 1, 2, 3. Out. 1, 2, 3. In. 1, 2, 3. Out…_

That was nice actually. Tim kept doing it.

Eventually the panic settled. There weren’t any worms, his name was Timothy Stoker, the year was 2017, Jon was sitting next to him on the floor of Tim’s flat, and most importantly there weren’t any worms.

Tim let his head fall onto Jon’s shoulder. “Thanks.”

Jon was stiffened at the gesture, but he didn’t push Tim away. “Are you alright now?”

“Not really.”

“Okay.”

He should move, he really should. His neck was already cramping up and no doubt Jon’s shoulder was too. This was nice though. Good. Tim deserved something good.

He’d get up soon, just… not yet.

Martin brushed the shattered pieces of ceramic into the dustpan. It was a shame. He’d liked that cup.

The Mother purred happily, much to his distaste. He didn’t like doing things like that. It was necessary though. Eventually, Tim would see that. Probably. Hopefully.

**You could _make_ him see.**

**I could** **_._ **

He wouldn’t. The Mother knew that but she liked his doubt. Doubt spun the most marvelous threads to sit upon her loom.

He tossed the rubbish in the bin atop the towels he’d used to mop up the spilled tea.

The Mother wouldn’t speak to him without reason. **What do you want?**

There was a tug on the threads which binded him, the spider silk which wrapped his ankles, wrist, and throat. It wasn’t a tangible thing, not like the webs Martin had spun around Jon's burned hand before moving onto the Corruption’s many marks. That didn’t make it any less real.

Martin grabbed his coat. His legs moved, not of his own accord but he’d long since stopped caring about such technicalities. They carried him down the institute steps, across London, and into the Covent Garden Theater. The significance was not lost on Martin.

“Anabelle,” he greeted the woman on the stage. “Why am I here?”

Anabelle ran one of her many hands through her spiderwebbed cornrows. A spider crawled out of her open lips as she spoke. “Right to the point, are we Martin?”

“I don’t see the point in niceties.”

“Well that’s a lie if I ever heard one.” the spider scuttled over one of her palms. “Won’t you join me?”

“No.” His legs moved anyway. He sat atop the stage, across from her. Anabelle’s spider scurried over to him and he pet its soft head. “Get on with it then.”

Anabelle sighed. “I really don’t know why you hate me so. You like the spiders well enough.”

Martin simply glared. They’d had this conversation many times over. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“Neither did I.”

Anabelle tilted her head to the side, silver braids falling over her shoulder. She plucked a strand from one of the braids and Martin’s glamour came undone. He glared at her with all of his eyes, to which she simply laughed. It sounded like scurrying legs.

“Why did you bring me here Anabelle?”

Martin sighed at the now useless glamour, pulling it away from his shoulders. He should have secured it better. Now he would have to spin a new one, and that would take all night. It was a shame. He’d been hoping to stop by the new cafe that had just opened up.

“I want to know your plan.”

“ _My_ plan?” Martin stared at the spider woman. “Aren’t you the one with the grand master plan?”

At this, Anabelle grinned. Her eyes shone white with excitement. “If that’s what you’d like to think, I certainly won’t stop you. Oh, but yours is so much more _interesting_.”

Martin didn’t have a plan. He didn’t. He wasn’t like Anabelle.

He could feel the Mother laughing through the tremors of the web at his fingertips.

_I don’t._

Anabelle was laughing too now, and so were the spiders. He hated that. He hated the sound of his own laughter as Anabell plucked it from his lungs.

“I’m just-“ his chest _hurt_ but he couldn’t stop laughing. “I don’t have a plan. I’m just trying to keep them alive.”

The sound of Anabelle’ slaughter would not break even for her voice. “That’s what makes it _interesting_.”

“Stop that,” Martin choked through a laugh, but Anabelle did not stop. Martin wasn’t entirely certain she could. “I said _stop_.”

“Stop me,” Anabelle laughed.

**Stop me.**

Martin pulled at the threads of his sweater and kept pulling. With the unraveled thread he wove and then he knit and then he sliced through the ends with his incisors. Anabelle’s laughter fell into his hands and he tucked it into the pouch he’d made. Only when he pulled the drawstring closed did his own laughter die.

“I don’t have a plan,” he told her.

He shoved the bag at her chest and her fingers closed around it. She beamed at him.

“You’re getting better at that,” pride swelled in her voice. “If you would just let me _teach_ you-“

“Thanks but no thanks.”

“Then let me help you.”

“No.”

“ _Please?”_

Martin sighed. No matter how many times they had this conversation it never got any easier. He did want her version of help. The last time he let a spider ‘help’ him he wound up becoming one.

“I’m going to help you,” Anabelle decided. 

That was the last thing Martin wanted but he couldn’t very well stop her. That would mess up the plan he didn’t have.

He did not grace her words with a response, instead gathering up the ruined threads of his glamour so the two could spin their webs together in silence.

Eventually Tim lifted his head off Jon’s shoulder and lifted himself to his feet. Jon blinked on the floor, somewhat dazed. Right. He should probably stand too.

Things were odd to say the least. He’d woken up to a door slamming and Tim mid panic attack. Jon hoped he’d handled that right. He probably talked too much.

They should talk about what happened last night, right. Or maybe not. If he asked Tim about his budding powers, Tim might ask about what happened with Martin and there was no way that would go over well. Tim would draw all the wrong conclusions.

As Tim ran a shaky hand through his hair Jon noticed the scratches on his arms. They weren’t deep, but they broke the skin and that wasn’t a good sign.

“Do you have a first aid kit?”

Tim squinted at him in confusion. Jon gestured at his arms.

“Oh.” Tim nodded. “Didn’t even notice that.”

He disappeared down the hall, returning with an armful of bandages, cotton balls, and peroxide which he dumped unceremoniously on the kitchen table. He pulled out a chair, reached for the peroxide, then stopped.

“Is that a… Beholding thing?”

Jon blinked. He hadn’t expected Tim to bring that up on his own. “Is what a Beholding thing?”

“The…” Tim gestured vaguely at the ground by the door. “That.”

“You mean your panic attack?”

Tim nodded.

“Tim, I have those all the time. So do a lot of people. They’re normal. Or, maybe not normal, but not supernatural.”

“Oh.”

“Although,” Jon sat across from Tim at the small secondhand table. He studied the scratches on Tim’s arms. Tim hadn’t done that for months. “Statements can trigger them. That only happened to me once, after Darren Hallow’s statement. The one about Annabelle Cane.”

Tim grimaced. He’d done the follow up for that statement. “That was a bad one.”

Jon continued. “It wasn’t bad because of the Beholding though. It was bad because I- I… Anabelle reminded me of…”

“Martin?”

“Someone else.”

Tim shifted in his chair. He looked like he wanted to ask, but he didn't. Jon was grateful for that. Even if he could handle talking about the Lietner which led him to Mr. Spider’s doorstep, he knew any spider conversation would eventually lead back to Martin. That was the last thing Jon wanted. He wanted to sort through how he felt about Martin without Tim’s particular brand of input.

Tim had a tendency to catastrophize when it came to Martin. From Tim’s end it probably made perfect sense, but Jon was tired of it. His and Martin’s relationship was, well not exactly _normal_ by any degree, not what Tim thought it was. Martin had never hurt Jon, not once. Even yesterday, when Jon had stormed out of the flat covered in cobwebs which still clung to his skin, Martin hadn’t harmed him. Martin had simply lost control of his powers, that was all. It happened to the best of people.

Of course, Jon could hardly expect Tim to understand that.

Tim pushed the peroxide towards Jon. “Could you…?”

Jon’s fingers curled tentatively over a cotton ball. He tried not to equate the feeling to cobweb. It took a minute for Jon to twist off the cap to the peroxide. He’d assumed it was the sort you had to push before turning, but it was the regular twist kind.

“Nail polish helps,” he found himself saying as he quickly flipped over the peroxide bottle with the cotton ball on top to soak it. “It dulls your nails a bit, so it hurts less.”

Georgie had recommended it, back in Uni. It was for picking, not scratching, but Jon hoped it might help. He still wasn’t sure whether that had actually worked or if the texture of the nail polish had simply unsettled him enough to keep his hands away from his skin. He didn’t pick as much as he used to though, so Georgie seemed to have the right idea of it. She always did.

He gently rolled the peroxide soaked cotton ball over Tim’s arm. Tim winced.

Was this some sort of relapse for Tim? He’s seen him scratching a few times, after Prentiss’s attack. That was what caused the ECDC to hold him longer after all. Should he ask? Jon hated questions after his health because they felt too much like pity. Martin appreciated them though. He said they made him feel less alone. Jon wondered which sort Tim was.

Neither, apparently. He opened up without prompting.

“You seem to know a lot about this sort of thing.”

Jon nodded absently. Where was Tim going with this?

“How do you stop it?”

Jon winced. How many times had he asked himself that question? At a certain point he’d simply accepted the panic and the picking and the numb sort of terror which lived in the back of his head, had lived there since he was eight years old. They were facts of life now, and had been for years.

There was therapy of course. That was the easy answer, arguably the right answer. It wasn’t as though Jon was so set in his ways as to deny the merits of therapy. He’d been to therapists before. Many of them, in fact. Somewhere between the woman who’d tried to tell him he was a “brainwashed victim of the patriarchy”, and the man who’d tried to not so subtly refer him to a sex therapist when he opened up about his sexuality, Jon had lost hope in finding a good therapist. There were undoubtedly good therapists out there, but he didn’t want to end up stuck again with a person who shouldn’t have been allowed a license at all.

Jon thought back to his own experiences. “You find out what your triggers are, and do your best to avoid them. Beyond that… I don’t know.”

Not for the first time, Jon wished he could find that hidden truth, to seek and scavenge and _Know_ all there was to know. No doubt it would make his life infinitely easier, but more importantly he wouldn’t have to see the way Tim’s face fell at the words.

He peeled away the plastic wrapping around the hello kitty bandaids. It took five to cover up the scratches on Tim’s right arm.

“Worms,” Tim said. “I-I think that’s what triggered it.”

“I’ll make sure not to give you any Corruption statements to follow up on.” Jon doused another cotton ball in peroxide.

He reached for Tim’s left arm.

The peroxide spilled onto its side as Jon jerked backwards. With wide eyes he stared.

There, encircling Tim’s wrist was a line of webbing identical to that which covered Jon’s own skin.

 _“What.”_ Tim demanded.

Jon simply stared.

“Oh for fucks sake Jon. What is it now…” Tim followed Jon’s gaze down the stretch of his arm. “Oh.”

Tim swallowed. His chair scraped against the ground as he pushed it out.

“You visited Martin.” It wasn’t a question.

There was a slow drip dripping sound as the peroxide spilled sticky onto the floor.

“That’s a nice way of putting it.”

“What,” Jon pushed down the rising static, the overwhelming need to know which lingered in the edges of his vision. “What happened?”

Tim responded by grabbing a towel off the counter and tossing it over the table. The peroxide left behind a sticky residue after he dabbed it up.

Jon forced his words to come out without compulsion. They felt wrong on his tongue. Stale. “ _Tim_. What happened?”

Tim dabbed furiously with the towel. He grit his teeth, jaw clenched, before smoothing out into a practiced smile. “Nothing Jon.”

Jon felt his whole body tense. This he knew all too well. In a blink he was back in his grandmother’s kitchen as she set down bags of groceries just a bit too hard.

Jon swallowed. He wasn’t a child anymore. He didn’t need to bite his lip and pretend he didn’t notice the shift in the air.

“Well _something_ obviously happened.”

Tim righted the bottle of peroxide and reached for the remaining bandages. His movements were quicker than normal. Rushed. “It’s fine Jon.”

“It’s not.”

“I said it’s fine.”

“But it’s _not_ .” Jon threw up his hands. He wasn’t great at social cues but he knew he was right about this one and it wasn’t fair for people to tell him he wasn’t on the rare occasion that he actually was. “I don’t know what it is but it’s not fine, and I can’t tell you what it is because I need you to tell me so just _tell me_!”

There was static in Jon’s voice, he realized too late. Not enough for a statement, but enough for a compulsion.

Tim’s lips twitched where he bit them closed. He was trying his damndest not to answer.

“I’m sorry,” Jon whispered.

“Martin gave me his statement,” the words tumbled from his teeth. “I didn’t want it, but he fed me it anyway and I couldn’t move and I was so hungry and-“

Tim sucked in a breath. He dabbed cotton with peroxide and his arm with cotton.

“It felt good,” he finished.

Jon nodded. He understood. Inwardly his stomach clenched. Martin has never given _him_ his statement. That was a ridiculous thing to be jealous of though so he shoved the feeling down.

He picked up the roll of bandages and began to wrap it carefully over Tim’s arm. He lingered on the area around Tim’s wrist, wrapping more than was strictly necessary.

Out of sight, out of mind.


	4. That Ever you Did Spy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of the Mother  
> April 28th, 2017  
> Statement never written

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem in the Mother's statement is not mine. It is a poem entitled The Spider and The Fly by Mary Howitt with accomanying illustrations by Tony Diterlizzi. It was my favorite book as a child, and I'm 90% sure it's a Lietner. My copy of the book doesn't exactly have a name plate, but it's suspiciously scratched up wherea name plate should be. Also, the cover is slightly singed but the inside pages are fine. I'm not saying Gerry... but I'm saying Gerry.

_Statement of the Mother_

_April 28th, 2017_

_Statement never written_

**_Once upon a time there was a Fly named Jonny. Jonny liked to read. One day he opened up a book I wrote, but it was a Bad Book. I didn’t write the book for nice little boys like Jonny. I wrote the book for the mean little boys. Boys like George. George liked to pick on Jonny, so I had my book eat him._ **

**_Once upon a time there was a Spider named Martin. Martin was also a nice little boy, and he liked bugs and dirt. Martin wasn’t very good at reading. What he was, was very good at being Martin. He was also very good at being Lonely, so I sent him George. George had been a mean little boy, but now he was a nice little spider. Martin loved him very much. Martin's mum stepped on George._ ** **I don’t like Martin’s mum.**

**_I would have liked to care for both my boys, but Jonny was too much an Eye. So I focused on Martin. I raised him as my own, just as his own mum refused to. I tucked him into bed each night with cotton and cobwebs and I sent my spiders to crawl into his ear and whisper him bedtime stories. My darling boy grew into a man._ **

**_I had always been jealous of Martin’s mum. I suppose all adoptive mothers must feel the same. I raised him, and yet he cared for her. Many a time I nearly snipped her threads just to have Martin as my own. If I had done so however, I knew Martin would never truly be my child._ **

**_One day, Martin did something very foolish. So I did what I always have and sent my spiders to help him. And then Martin did something extraordinary. He chose me. He chose me and George and Anabelle and all of my spiders._ **

**_Martin made a very good Spider, and he was in love with the Fly._ **

**_The Fly was a very stupid man, as most Eyes tend to be. He broke my table. That made me very cross with Jonny. It was a gift. Then my Martin saved Jonny, and Jonny kissed my Martin, and I decided to forgive them both. Jonny for being stupid, and Martin for having horrible taste in men._ **

**_Then the Big Eye killed a mean old man and Jonny was blamed for it. Jonny moved in with Martin and Martin covered their new little home with web and hid it away from the world. But then Jonny lied to Martin. He went to his friend Timothy and asked the man to distract the Spider while Jonny talked with the lady made of wax. The wax lady burned Jonny’s hand, so Martin wrapped it up in cobweb to stop it from hurting, and kept wrapping and wrapping because he didn’t know how to stop._ **

**_Once upon a time there was another Fly. His name was Timothy. Little Timmy wasn’t a part of my web. He wasn’t important at all until Martin decided he was._ **

**_Once upon a time there was a Fly and a Spider and another Fly, and the two Flies went Knock Knock Knock on Mr. Spider's door._ **

_“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,_

_“‘Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;_

_The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,_

_And I have many curious things to shew when you are there.”_

_“Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “to ask me is in vain,_

_For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”_

_“I’m sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high;_

_Will you rest upon my little bed?” said the Spider to the Fly._

_“There are pretty curtains drawn around; the sheets are fine and thin,_

_And if you like to rest awhile, I’ll snugly tuck you in!”_

_“Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “for I’ve often heard it said,_

_They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!”_

_Said the cunning Spider to the Fly, “Dear friend what can I do,_

_To prove the warm affection I’ve always felt for you?_

_I have within my pantry, good store of all that’s nice;_

_I’m sure you’re very welcome–will you please to take a slice?”_

_“Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “kind sir, that cannot be,_

_I’ve heard what’s in your pantry, and I do not wish to see!”_

_“Sweet creature!” said the Spider, “you’re witty and you’re wise,_

_How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!_

_I’ve a little looking-glass upon my parlour shelf,_

_If you’ll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself.”_

_“I thank you, gentle sir,” she said, “for what you’re pleased to say,_

_And bidding you good morning now, I’ll call another day.”_

_The Spider turned him round about, and went into his den,_

_For well he knew the silly Fly would soon come back again:_

_So he wove a subtle web, in a little corner sly,_

_And set his table ready, to dine upon the Fly._

_Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing,_

_“Come hither, hither, pretty Fly, with the pearl and silver wing;_

_Your robes are green and purple–there’s a crest upon your head;_

_Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead!”_

_Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little Fly,_

_Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;_

_With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew,_

_Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue–_

_Thinking only of her crested head–poor foolish thing! At last,_

_Up jumped the cunning Spider, and fiercely held her fast._

_He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,_

_Within his little parlour–but she ne’er came out again!_

_And now dear little children, who may this story read,_

_To idle, silly flattering words, I pray you ne’er give heed:_

_Unto an evil counsellor, close heart and ear and eye,_

_And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly._

Tim bolted upright, clutching the sheets close to his chest. His dream… he didn’t remember his dream. He only knew that there were goosebumps on his arms and he had sweated through his nightshirt. It must have been a nightmare.

Slowly, Tim picked himself up out of his bed. He’d never been one to fall back asleep after a nightmare. Tim checked his phone.

5:13am. Not too terribly early. At the very least he wouldn’t feel horribly guilty about waking Jon up on accident as he clambered to the kitchen. Assuming the man had gone to sleep at all.

Jon had been staying at Tim’s flat for a couple days now. They hadn’t talked about why since that first night, though not for lack of trying. Every time Tim tried to ask Jon how he got webbed up, he evaded the question. Tim still wasn’t sure whether that was on purpose or if Jon’s tendency to ramble and make odd connections was to blame. The last time Tim tried Jon somehow spent half an hour info dumping about deep sea creatures. All of which the Eye oh so helpfully confirmed.

That was another thing. The Eye. That pressing feeling of being watched which was ever present at the archives had started following Tim home. Tim wasn’t sure if he or Jon was to blame. He didn’t want to examine it too closely.

There was a lot Tim didn’t want to examine at the moment. He didn’t want to think about the statements he had taken. He didn’t want to examine the implications behind that. He didn’t want to think about the tape recorder church had taken up permanent residence on his coffee table and refused to be burned, crushed, thrown away, or blown to bits. It might have been multiple tape recorders. That didn’t change the fact that it refused to leave.

Jon was a surprisingly polite houseguest. Tim hadn’t been expecting that. He also hadn’t expected Jon to show up at his doorstep covered in cobweb but they were long past that. He might stay up late pouring over statements but he only recorded in the daytime to avoid waking Tim. His papers were strewn about, but only in the living room. He didn’t hog the shower, and Tim had even caught him vacuuming once. Jon also cooked, and he was _good_ at it. That had thrown Tim for a bit of a loop considering the man looked like he hardly ate.

“Jon?” Tim called out. He wasn’t worried about waking Jon. It seemed after sleeping a full day Jon had decided to make up for it by refusing to sleep at all.

Jon didn’t reply. Tim figured the man had finally collapsed of exhaustion. Staying awake for 48 hours will do that. Tim hoped Jon had at least fallen asleep on the couch.

...oh who was he kidding, Jon was probably face down on the floor right now.

Tim rubbed his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to drag Jon onto the couch, but he could at least toss a blanket over him.

Tim crossed into the living room. He scanned it, the scattered papers, the crumpled blankets. His stomach dropped. He looked again. Then again.

This was fine. Jon wasn’t in the living room. So what? Tim turned on his heel, checking the rest of his apartment. The kitchen was empty. The bathroom light was off.

 _Calm down,_ Tim told himself, _He probably went for coffee or something. Which he shouldn’t be doing since he’s a suspect for murder right now, but still. He’s fine._

One way to check. Tim pulled out his phone and started to type.

**Where are you?**

On the coffee table, Jon’s phone buzzed.

_Shit._

Martin’s apartment felt odd without Jon in it. He kept turning the corner and expecting to hear the click of a tape recorder or the slight hum of static. It never came, and each time Martin staunchly ignored it. Well, he tried to at least.

Martin had fucked up, he could admit that. He freaked out. To be fair, _anyone_ would freak out if their boyfriend came home with third degree burns over his entire hand.

He just wanted to make it stop hurting Jon. That was all.

So he’d wrapped Jon’s hand in web, and by the time he’d finished that his hands were already moving, weaving, knitting, purling, and he could have stopped he _should_ have stopped but Jon’s worm scars were right there and they were _hurting_ Jon still, even now, and Martin didn’t _want_ to stop. He didn’t mean to command Jon.

The Mother hummed. Her laughter echoed on his threads.

He didn’t mean to command Jon, but he _did_ . One loud, angry **“Quiet.”** and a softer **“Stop squirming dear, you’ll hurt yourself.”**

Okay, he didn’t mean to do the first one. The second- well Jon just wouldn’t stay _still_ , and he really was going to hurt himself if he kept trying to get away and that wouldn’t do at all. Martin could hardly be blamed for wanting to soothe the scars that Prentiss left behind and anyway _Jon_ was the one who lied to him. Jon had told him that he would, under no circumstance, talk to Jude Perry. They would find the answers Jon so desperately desired some other way. Together.

Jon lied _._

He lied to Martin’s face and came back home with half his hand melted and skin fused together. So yeah, maybe Martin had gotten a _little_ pissed and his powers got a _little_ out of control and he didn’t try quite as hard to reign them back in as he let on.

Martin realized suddenly that the Mother had gone quiet. She’s never quiet, always laughing, always pulling, encouraging, wrapping him in her will and embrace. The only time she ever went quiet is when she stopped weaving, when Martin began pulling his own threads and the Mother watched with pride. When Martin’s thoughts spiraled away from him, into that realm which terrifies him most and-

_Oh._

He was doing it again, wasn’t he?

Martin slumped down onto the couch, letting his head fall back on the cushions. He closed his eyes, ignoring the silver lines etched onto the back of his eyelids. Right. He needed to fix this, get his mind back right. Martin wished Jon were here. He understood what it was to tiptoe the line between human and monster.

Martin’s mind reached out before he realized what he was doing. It would be so easy to bring Jon here, to play his limbs like puppet strings and _make_ Jon come home. The webbing was all there, all he needed to do was pull.

Martin stopped himself. Using his powers on Jon was the whole reason Jon wasn’t here right now. That’s right. It wasn’t Jon’s fault at all, and that line of thinking is the reason Martin was in this mess to begin with.

Martin took a deep breath. _In. Out._ He ran his fingers through his hair.

The Mother hummed in disappointment. Relief swelled in Martin’s chest. She wasn’t quiet anymore, and that meant she hadn’t won. Not yet. At least, Martin was fairly certain that’s what it meant. It was impossible to tell with the Web.

The Mother smiled smugly through a thousand dancing threads.

Mind games. Typical.

Martin ignored her. He had more important things to deal with, namely how to apologize to Jon. Martin pulled his phone out of his pocket and pressed on Jon’s contact. His hand hovered over the call button. He should have done this in the first place, why hadn’t he?

 **Because you didn’t do anything wrong,** the Mother gently coaxed.

No. No, Martin absolutely had and he was not about to follow that train of thought again.

**He lied to you.**

Jon did, didn’t he? He told Martin he wouldn’t meet with Jude Perry and then he-

No. No absolutely not.

 **Stop it.** Martin hissed.

The Mother spun webs which were far from innocent. **Stop what?**

“Stop lying to me! Manipulating me!” Too late, Martin realized the words weren’t only in his webs. They bounced off the walls of his flat, angry and scared and not at all how he’d intended them to sound. “I’m not- just stop.”

Martin could feel it, the Mother’s coy grin stretched over too many teeth.

 _“I’m not like you,”_ Martin whispered, and how many times had he said that exact phrase? To Anabbelle. To the Mother. To himself.

 **Aren’t you now?** The Mother’s voice lilted in challenge. **Timothy is terrified of you.**

_“I know.”_

**And Jonathan is afraid.**

“He’s afraid of spiders.”

 **He’s afraid of** **_you_ ** **.**

Martin flinched. He hated it, but he couldn’t help the way his mind drew a connection between the Mother of Puppets and his own mum. The Mother knew that. That’s why she did it, why she said things just so, angry in a way that looks tired if you squint hard enough. Martin always squinted. That never stopped him from flinching.

The Mother liked doing that, taking old wounds and covering them with cobwebs.

**Oh, Martin.**

She cooed at him, gentle warmth filling his lungs as a spider skittered out of the shadows. The spider was soft, larger than it had any right to be, and it nuzzled against Martin’s hand. Martin obliged, petting it gently. It was comforting in an overwhelming sort of way that made Martin’s eyes well up.

**I’m so sorry darling.**

She wasn’t. If she was, she wouldn’t keep doing this. She sounded just like his mum though, the way he’d always imagined she would sound if she ever apologized. It hurt. It was comforting. It was everything Martin had always needed and he hated it.

The spider on his lap nuzzled his hand. It was nice.

There was a phone in his other hand. Jon’s contact was pulled up, and his thumb was hovering over the call button. Martin blinked. That was odd.

**I’m only trying to help. You know that, don’t you dear?**

There was cobweb on the back of his eyelids. “Yeah,” Martin found himself saying. “Yeah mum, I know.”


	5. The Way into my Parlour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think I’ll rip it out of you instead.” Tim seethed. There was static in the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise you I haven't abandoned this fic I just lost motivation for a bit. MAG192 was just the motivation I needed

There was someone knocking on the door.

Martin clutched the corkscrew in her hand with a deathly grip. He still slept with it, even though he knew Jane Prentiss was long dead, even though he could destroy her by pulling a single thread if she wasn’t. He was perched on the top of the couch, carefully scanning the ground for those silver squirming things.

The knocking grew louder. Prentiss was dead. She was _dead_.

The door flew off its hinges and Martin nearly cried in relief as Tim stormed inside. He grabbed Martin by the collar and tugged until the Spider tumbled to the floor.

“Where is he.” Tim demanded.

Martin sighed. “Oh, Tim. It’s just you.”

Tim glared down at him. His knuckles were white in his fists and the air filled with static. A tape recorder clicked on but neither man noticed.

**“Where is he.”**

“I thought he was with you.” The words swept over Martin before he realized what was happening. “Wait, Tim. He’s not with you?”

**“Where. Is. Jon.”**

“I-I don’t know! Tim, I thought he was with you-”

“Stop fucking lying to me! I know you took him so just **_tell_** **me where the hell** -”

“Tim- I need you to calm down, okay? Deep breaths.”

“You took him! I know you did, I mean, I mean I don’t _Know_ but- you, you and your fucked up…”

“Tim-”

“Whatever it is you’re doing to him. He actually thinks he loves you, you know? And that’s- where else would he be? You-”

**_“Tim.”_ **

“You have a crush on him and then you turn into a monster who can make people do things and all of a sudden you’re- you’re living together? I’m not, I’m not stupid, okay? I’m not naive! And I won’t let you mess with his head again just when he’s starting to think for himself so, so **tell me-** ”

**“SHUT. UP.”**

The static fell. Martin took a deep breath. There were threads on his fingers and he hated it. Tim took a step back. His eyes were wide.

“I’m not lying Tim! Which you should know because you just compelled me!”

“Oh.” Tim blinked. His eyes filled with an emotion Martin couldn’t name. “Fuck.”

Tim closed his eyes and took a deep breath, steadying himself. He forced his hands to collapse from their fists and rest at his sides. The static was back, quieter this time but higher in pitch. Targeted and intentional.

**“Did you kidnap Jon?”**

Martin sighed. “No, Tim.”

**“Do you know where he is?**

“No.”

“And the last time he went missing like this was when he took Jude Perry’s statement and came back with a third degree burn in the shape of a handprint because he chose to shake her hand knowing full well she was made of boiling wax because he’s a fucking dumbass.”

“...yes.”

Tim offered out his hand. Martin stared at it. He hadn’t used his powers without realizing again, had he? He’d only done what he’d meant to do, which was getting Tim to stop talking.

“Well come on then,” Tim said. “We have to find Jon before he gets himself killed.”

Martin blinked. He took the hand and Tim hauled him to his feet.

“Oh, and one more thing.” Tim reached his hand back, curled it into a fist, and swung.

Martin stumbled backwards, clutching his nose. “The hell was that for!?”

“Did Jon tell you anything about his meeting with Jude Perry?”

Martin took a deep breath, steadying himself. “You _punched_ me!”

“You deserved it.”

Tim grabbed Martin by the arm and tugged, causing him to stumble forward. He started dragging Martin towards the door but Martin dug in his heels. Tim may have caught him off guard but when it came down to it Martin was far stronger. “Hey- Hey!”

“Since neither of us know where he is, the best place to start is the institute, yeah? Let’s go.” He tugged again, but Martin refused to budge.

“Well that’s reasonable enough but- _Tim_. You don’t think that maybe, just maybe, you’re rushing into this?”

“Oh fuck off.”

Martin ended up joining Tim eventually, which was to say that Tim had just shrugged, rushed out, and Martin came after him to make sure he didn’t end up flattened by oncoming traffic. Really, it was better than Tim could have hoped for.

They reached the Institute in record time. Tim rushed past the front desk, giving a quick wave to Rosie. 

Rosie blinked. She pushed up her glasses and went back to her spreadsheets.

“I’m so sorry about him,” Martin tapped his fingernails over the desk. “He’s a bit. Well. I-”

“Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

“...Right.”

“Right.”

“I’ll er. I’ll just go then.”

Rosie laughed. She pulled open a filing cabinet underneath her desk and took out a stack of papers. “Form 48b, section 2. You’ll want to fill this out for HR and…” she pulled out another stack of paperwork “also this for Management. Three copies of both, one for me, one for Mr. Bouchard, and a copy to submit to a sectioned police officer in order to void any and all missing person’s reports.”

She dropped the papers onto the desk in front of Martin, it fell with a hard smack and air rushed up in his face. “Er- I really don’t think”

Rosie pushed up her glasses. Her face was a hard line. “Is there a problem?”

“No! No. It’s just. I’m a bit busy right now. Could I come back to-” Martin’s mouth snapped shut on his own. He looked at Rosie a bit more closely. The whites of her eyes were covered in webbing. “I see.”

Anabelle flexed Rosie’s fingers. “I wondered how long it would take you to notice.”

“I told you I didn’t want your help.”

“And I told you I didn’t care.”

Martin glared her down.

“Oh he’ll be _fine_ , Martin,” she insisted, waving her hand in dismissal. “But if you rush in now you’ll mess it all up.”

She was right. Martin hated that. “I- I still don’t want anything to do with you and your schemes.

“This was _your_ plan,” she reminded him.

“I don’t have a-” Martin sighed. This wasn’t an argument worth having. “Fine.”

He picked up the stack of paperwork and sat down at one of the lobby benches. He didn’t trust Annabelle, but she was good at her job. Right now that had to be enough.

Tim dug through the scattered cardboard boxes, skimming through the files before tossing them haphazardly to the ground. They hadn’t been organized to begin with so it wasn’t like he could make it worse. He was looking for something, anything on Jude Perry. That was where Jon had last disappeared to, and that was Tim’s best chance at finding the idiot. He also kept an eye out for any spider statements while he was at it. Sure, Martin- _The Spider_ he means - didn’t kidnap Jon but that didn’t mean he- it - had nothing to do with this. Tim didn’t trust it.

The statements felt wrong in his hands. It was an odd sensation and it made Tim feel just a bit sick.

These statements were all fake. Of course they were. “Five nights at-” okay that was just somebody’s shitty fanfiction. Irritation clawed at Tim’s throat. No wonder Jon was such an ass about these things, it was like being sat in front of a four course meal and then told it was all plastic. That was just rude.

Tim swallowed. Should he be worried about that line of thought? Probably. He didn’t have time to be worried though, he had to find Jon.

“ _Tim_.” A hand shoved his shoulder roughly.

He looked up. Melanie was glaring at him. “I’ve been calling your name for the past ten minutes.”

Tim blinked. “Oh.” He went back to the files in his hand. _Demonic picture frame_ \- fake. _Cannibal witches-_ made up. _Mind control flower-_ This was literally porn. Did no one screen these?

Melanie huffed. “You want to ignore me? Fine. It's your job on the line. Just thought I’d let you know Bouchard wants to see you.”

“Tell him I’m busy.”

“Do it yourself. I’m not your messenger.”

“Okay,” Tim shrugged. He went back to the files.

Melanie’s hand curled into a fist. She’d never exactly been quiet, and she didn’t put up with anyone’s bullshit. That was a necessity in her field. People always tried to talk over her, in the business and outside of it. This anger though- That was new. She kind of liked it. And well, it wasn’t like Tim didn’t deserve it.

Her phone rang. It was Georgie.

Melanie took a deep breath and stepped out into the hallway to answer it.

Tim tossed another statement over his shoulder. Jon would hate that. Good. He could lecture Tim about it later.

He continued to dig. There had to be _something_ in here that would help.

“Mr. Stoker.” A smug voice announced from the doorway.

Tim skimmed another statement. Useless, they were all useless

“I’d ask you not to add to the disorganization of the archives over your… frustrations.”

The carpeted floor softened the sound of Elias’s heels as he crossed the room. He plucked the file from Tim’s hands and placed it neatly back in the box.

Tim didn’t bother turning around. “ _What_.”

“Melanie has now filed three separate complaints against you and I feel, as you are currently missing your head archivist-”

“Yeah, because Martin framed him for murder.” Probably. Tim assumed so, specifically because Martin had expressly denied it. Jon didn’t have the upper body strength for murder. Elias, maybe.

Elias ignored him. “I feel as though it is my duty to intervene.”

“Fuck off”

“Now Tim, that kind of language does not belong in the workplace. This is the kind of behavior that landed us in this… uncomfortable situation. If your behavior does not change, I may have to escalate matters.”

Tim laughed. “Oh yeah? Fire me. Go ahead. See if you can.” He turned back to the box only for Elias to take that from him too.

Tim spun around to face Elias. He had to get that box back. He had to look through the statements. He had to find Jon. Now if only people would stop trying to talk to him for two minutes so he could do that, that’d be great.

Elias froze. His eyes fell on the line of web surrounding Tim’s wrist then traced up his arm, dotted as they were with worm scars. When they reached Tim’s eyes the feeling of being watched, ever present in the institute, increased tenfold.

In that instant, Tim Knew. Elias was of the Eye and everything Martin had told him about the man was true.

“ _Oh_ ,” Elias swallowed. “This certainly changes things.”

Tim’s hands clenched at his sides. “You _Knew_ . You knew about Jane, and the worms, and Martin, and Sasha. You _Knew_.”

“I did.” Elias continued to study Tim’s worm scars as though they were the most fascinating thing in the world.

Tim’s head was spinning. There was so much new information in his head and he didn’t know what to do with any of it.

“You know,” Elias’s words were slow, carefully chosen. “Jon’s off meeting another avatar. I could tell you the address if you’d like.”

“I think I’ll rip it out of you instead.” Tim seethed. There was static in the air.

Elias tilted his head. “Go on then.”

Tim glared. Elias simply smiled, more polite than he had any right to be. He reached out into Elias’s mind. The address was easy to find, perched at the forefront of the man’s thoughts. He was making it easy for Tim on purpose.

Tim didn’t examine it too closely. He could confront Elias after he stopped the _idiot_ known as Jonathan Sims from getting himself killed.


End file.
